Whispers of War
by Me The Cat
Summary: Fighting for her beliefs takes Sophia Greley away from her cramped home and overworked, religious mother and into the world of high pureblood society where she encounters more then she expected. OC
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: If you recognize it, then it doesn't belong to me.**

Three girls sat silently in their compartment as the train rumbled on towards London. They were perhaps fifteen or sixteen and the occasional stilted conversation between them revealed them to be more friends of convenience then of true liking.

The train itself seemed more subdued then was the wont of an enclosed space which held nearly three hundred teenagers for an extended period of time. The loudest noise, for once, was not the bangs and screams of mischievous and rambunctious wizarding youth, but the magically dulled chugging of the wheels beneath them and the occasional piercing scream of the whistle.

The girls in this particular compartment were absorbed in their own thoughts, having already changed out of their blue trimmed robes into muggle clothing of varying quality and fashion. One girl, dressed in comfortably worn jeans and a nice button down blouse stared out the window, her eyes flickering back and forth as she tried to follow the rapidly changing scenery. Another, dressed rather carelessly in a shapeless dress of an indeterminate shade (her shoes on the other hand were quality and well cared for), had taken out a rather large book on the rather stultifying topic of ethics in the field of medicinal potions (the current chapter was on the use of Unicorn parts scavenged or poached. She was dutifully slogging through it before her arrival at Kings Cross and the inevitable questions from her parents about her comprehension of their ever so thoughtful Christmas present).

The third girl was perhaps the most curious. She was not doing anything at all, as far as her companions could tell. She was sitting, perfectly straight, knees together, with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes pointed straight ahead at the compartment wall. Anyone who knew her particularly well would know that this meant her mind was working furiously towards some sort of thesis or conclusion. Unfortunately for her, her companions did not know her nearly well enough and had concluded early on in their acquaintance that she was extraordinarily odd, even for a Ravenclaw (a house which included the likes of Loony Lovegood for Merlin's sake). Fortunately for her, her so called "oddness" was a quiet one and she was intelligent enough that her roommates did not mind being friends with her. They had long since deduced that if they ignored her while she was being extremely odd, then she would eventually snap out of it and be somewhat normal again for a time.

Shortly before the train was due to pull into Kings Cross, she snapped out of it. The first signs were that her breathing returned to normal levels and she resumed blinking. The girl at the window was the first to notice and breathed a sigh of relief, her friend's weirdness had always given her the creepy-crawlys. The next signs were more physical, the slight relaxing of the shoulders, knees coming unclenched, and finally her head would fall from it's rigid, locked position on top of her neck and turn to face her companions.

"Dumbledore got what he deserved." The other two turned to look at her incredulously. The entire school was mourning the death of their beloved headmaster at the hands of the most hated Potions professor Hogwarts had ever seen.

"No, seriously." She continued earnestly. "If he hadn't been so blind to the truth, then he wouldn't have had to die. But he just kept meddling in things that didn't concern him. The wizarding world is starting to take back what is ours and he was stupid enough to get in the way of the inevitable."

"The inevitable?" Asked the first girl as she balled angry fists against the faded legs of her jeans. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, the magical community is finally starting to act to protect itself from the invasive species taking over our world. If we don't take action now, the muggles will overrun us like weeds and then where would we be? Our culture and magics lost forever! Far too many muggles know about us. The only way to protect our culture now is to cut the muggle scourge from our lives!" As this speech progressed, her voice climbed from its usual measured tones to passionate heights. The girl leaned forwards towards her companions, a tiny golden cross on a delicate chain falling from within her dress and glinting in the dying sunlight.

"That's crazy." The second girl interjected, nonplussed at this sudden turn of events.

"That's more than crazy!" The first girl exclaimed, far more . "That's bloody insane! Where on earth did you get such nut-job ideas?"

The third girl looked shocked at the attacks coming from people who she had assumed would agree with her. Wasn't that what friends were for, after all?

The compartment fell into a tense silence until the train finally pulled into King's Cross station and all three girls gratefully gathered their belongings and left the compartment without a word to each other.

Outside, the three girls turned to each other.

"I'll see you in September then?"

"I suppose so."

"Bye."

The third girl, whose name was Sophia, watched as her two companions disappeared into the crowd and the smoke. Fools. Obviously she needed friends with clearer vision.

As she turned in search of her mother, her eyes fell on the Parkinson family. She knew just who to turn to.

3


	2. Through the Looking Glass

A/N: Gratitude to my beloved Beta, the hilarious SpaceMonkey0941. The only person I know who'll say "Holy adjectives Batman!" when editing. ^_^

'Dear Pansy,

Sophia paused, her quill hovering above the parchment and threatening to drip a dark splotch of ink onto the rough paper.

'I have given some thought to what you offered me at the station and I believe I would be—'

The quill cracked with an angry _snap _as she flourished the 'e' and splashed harsh black ink across the page. She frowned and threw both quill and parchment into the waste bin beside the small, brightly painted table which served as a desk. She started over.

'Pansy,

Thank you for the offer you made me at King's Cross the other day. I would be pleased to accept your invitation for the eighteenth of July, if it still stands, and would greatly appreciate the chance to hear what your father has to say.

Sincerely,

Sophia Greley'

There. That sounded sufficiently mature. She scattered sand on the page to dry it and then folded it carefully into an envelope. which she sealed with a pool of royal blue wax poured from a tall glass plastered with the image of the Virgin Mary, her face flickering with the flame behind the glass.

Once the wax had cooled, she picked up the letter and took it to the cramped living room. She placed it on the mantle beside an ornate crucifix with the dying savior hanging bloody from the heavy silver cross. Her mother would take it to the post office on her way to work in the morning.

Warm yellow light poured our of the kitchen where her mother was sitting at the scarred and beaten wooden table with the Daily Prophet spread out in front of her. A pot of chicken soup bubbled on the stove and the overwhelming scent of chicken stock pervaded the tiny room, infiltrating the rest of the apartment.

"There's soup if you're hungry, _mi amor._" Her mother's accent carried the mark of the Spanish heritage that she had brought with her when her family had moved to England twenty-six years ago.

"There's always soup." Sophia grumbled. She ignored the pot sitting on the stove and opened the coolant cabinet. Cheese, chicken, limp celery, a container of left-over paella from the other night, a half-empty bottle of milk. She sneered at the empty shelves, grabbed the paella and shut the door.

"We need to go shopping." She told her mother.

"I know. Tomorrow, _te prometo_. After work." Her mother's soft brown eyes looked up at her daughter and she smiled. "Come, sit with me." She closed the paper and gestured to the empty chair beside her.

"I left a letter on the mantle. Could you mail it tomorrow?"

"_Claro._ Who are you writing?"

"A friend."

Silence fell in the warm yellow light of the kitchen giving way only to the soft rustle of the paper and the scrape of the fork against the cracked ceramic bowl.

Three weeks later Sophia tumbled gracelessly out of the green flames and into a parlor the size of her apartment where a glass chandelier threw prisms of light dancing haphazard along the walls.

In front of her stood a house-elf, wearing a fine silk pillowcase the color of fresh cream. Not that Sophia had ever seen fresh cream, but she had read about it and it was the color she had always imagined fresh cream to be.

"If you will follow Mopsy, Miss. Mopsy will take you to the sitting room where the Mistress and the young Miss wait."

Sophia anxiously smoothed back her hair, making sure that none had come out of its meticulous french braid and tugged on the wrists of her sleeves. She smoothed her sweaty palms over the dress of her skirt, took a deep breath and followed the tiny creature out the door.

Light shone into the hallway through framed by heavy, virescent curtains and landed on the moving portraits of witches and wizards richly clad in the finest robes of various eras. Young children stared solemnly out from their frames, watching her as she made her way behind the elf. She was keenly aware of the cheap velvet of her dress (coated with a fine patina of soot from the floo) and the high pitched squeak of the rubber soles of her patent leather shoes against the glossy marble floor

"Through here, Miss." The elf gestured her through an open door and she gladly stepped onto the lush grey carpet as warmth hit her in the face with palpable force.

"Miss Greley, Mistress." Mopsy turned to the imposing woman sitting straight-backed on the settee and curtsied, its over-large ears flapping into it's bulbous brown eyes as it bowed its head. Then the elf vanished and Sophia was left standing alone in front of the imposing Parkinson matron and her snub-nosed daughter.

"Come here Miss Greley, where I can see you properly." Sophia took three steps forward into a patch of hazy white light that filtered through white gauze under-curtains.

"Hm." Mrs. Parkinson pursed her thin lips. "Who are your parents?"

"My father was Stephen Greley, ma'am."

"Muggle-born?" The matron snapped.

"Half-blood." Sophia took a deep, shaky breath. "He died when I was an infant. My mother is Katarina Geley. She works at the ministry."

"In what capacity."

"A secretary, ma'am."

"And her maiden name?"

"Moreno." Silence as this was considered.

"A good Spanish family." She nodded. "Why have I not heard of her before?"

Sophia raised her head defiantly.

"She's a squib." She belatedly added a humble "Ma'am".

Pansy's head snapped up from where she had been examining her hands in boredom but, she stayed silent in deference to her forbidding mother.

"Hm." Murky hazel eyes scanned her outfit and suddenly Sophia was keenly aware of the dusting of soot on her best navy blue velvet dress and the scuffs on her patent leather shoes. "Well, sit down." Mrs. Parkinson gestured imperiously to a straight-backed chair to the left of the settee. "Mopsy!"

The elf popped back into the room and curtsied.

"Yes, mistress?"

"We'll have our tea now." Mopsy curtsied once again and disappeared. Sophia sat gingerly on the pristine chair, conscious of the soot on her dress and not wanting to dirty the seat any more then she had to.

The talk turned to school as the creature set up a tea service and poured steaming hot tea into delicate china cups.

"What house are you in?"

"Ravenclaw, ma'am."

"You must be very studious." The matron balanced to tea cup on her lap, never bringing it to her lips. Pansy's gaze drifted and she munched on a plate of biscuits.

"I'm second in my year."

"Who is first, Pansy?" The girl swallowed a bite of biscuit before responding.

"I don't know mother. She's in the year below me."

"The first is Karen Condren. She's in Ravenclaw with me."

"And in your year?" Mrs. Parkinson's gaze returned to her daughter.

"That bitch mudblood, Granger."

"Language, Pansy. That is not very lady-like."

"Sorry." Pansy muttered. "That mudblood, Granger."

"Better."

An hour later, the cups were drained and the conversation had stuttered to a halt. Mrs. Parkinson gave the order to prepare for the evenings festivities and turned to her daughter.

"Make sure she is dressed appropriately for the party. I will not have it said that I allow my daughter to mingle with the destitute. She should fit into some of the robes you're too fat to be seen in."

"Yes mother." Pansy's jaw tightened, but she stood and gestured for Sophia to follow her. Neither girl said anything as they wound through the forbidding hallways, up a majestic flight of stairs and into a slightly less imposing wing of the house.

"You have a beautiful house." Sophia attempted to break the awkward silence.

Pansy said nothing.

They entered a large room with the most natural light Sophia had seen so far. The decor was frilly. Soft pinks, minty greens and accents of cream. Nothing hard, cracked, or sensible to be seen.

Pansy rummaged through her closet and tossed out a few gowns.

"Try these on, but bathe first. I don't want you covering my clothes with filth." She sneered and pointed to a gilded, cream door.

Sophia stepped out of the shower and wrapped the fluffiest towel she had ever felt around her body.

The robes Pansy had given her were hanging on the door. She picked the first one up, pulled it over her head, and stood in front of the mirror, examining it critically. It was a rather hideous shade of chartreuse, although the cut was flattering enough accentuating her thin waist and just hinting at cleavage. She tugged it off and pulled the second dress on.

The silken ivory cloth slithered across her skin deliciously and she luxuriated in the seldom-felt sensation. The hem of the dress _just_brushed the tops of her feet and she twirled in front of the mirror. She glanced at the final dress, a cherry red number with a plunging neckline, and decided against changing a third time. She pulled on the outer robe, covering her arms, and stepped out of the bathroom.

"About time." Pansy was sitting, crossed legged, on the edge of her bed flipping through the latest edition of Witch Weekly. She scanned Sophia from head to toe, grunted and pointed to the closet. "There should be matching shoes in there. Mopsy!" She yelled.

The house elf appeared in the room with a light pop. "Yes, Miss?"

"Do something with her hair."

"Yes, Miss." Mopsy curtsied and gestured to the chair in front of the vanity. "If miss would please sit here."

Sophia sat, shoes in hand, and with a snap of Mopsy's bony, elven fingers her hair was dry and up in an elegant twist.

"Let's go." Pansy stood and smoothed her own mossy green gown. Sophia quickly slipped on her shoes and followed Pansy back down the hall to where Mrs. Parkinson was waiting.

With pursed lips, the matriarch examined Sophia's new look with a critical eye.

"Hm." She nodded curtly. "Better. Follow me and do not speak unless invited to do so. Do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am." She suppressed the urge to curtsy and followed the Parkinson women down the stairs.


End file.
